The Little Things
by Cheshiremask
Summary: When you get to know someone, when you get to love someone, it's the little things that really, really matter.


_Author's Note: Okay, now I'll freely admit to feeling like I'm cheating at this point, but this is another fic from the good ol' Kink Meme that I just remembered about. I was rather proud of it when I wrote it, too, so I'm putting it here. I kind of went off prompt when I wrote it, but it was still fun, and hopefully all you guys will get a kick out of my take on Gangster!Pollo._

* * *

The longer the two of them spent together, the more they learned about each other.

Apollo, for example, learned that Klavier couldn't drink rye because he'd gone on a bender with it once and had gotten so violently ill that he'd sworn off the stuff for life. He also learned that Klavier loved sleeping in on Sundays, and that he'd never pass up an opportunity to eat pastries with chocolate in them - which meant that said treats were banned from the house in consideration of his carefully maintained figure.

Klavier had learned that his schatzi loved Belgian waffles, was horrible at operating manual can openers, and was very easily impressed with displays of manual dexterity. He'd spent several hours preening over the praise that a rather simple feat of juggling had earned him, and had made a little promise to himself to get better at it quickly.

Even as he was making plans for his next feat - something that he decided would include several pieces of readily-available fruit - Klavier learned something new about his boyfriend.

It was a Wednesday evening. Apollo had come over for dinner and now they were just enjoying the quiet. Klavier had taken a seat on one of his tasteful leather armchairs with the novel he'd been trying to finish for the past week while Apollo had introduced the case files he had brought to Klavier's coffee table. The mess of paper had crawled a little onto the couch that the defense attorney was seated on, and Klavier couldn't help but chuckle. Apollo had an entertaining habit of forcing his paperwork to _orbit_ him in ever-widening concentric circles, "so he could see it all". That was nothing new, though. Klavier had noticed _that_ little habit several weeks ago.

The thing that surprised Klavier was that his sweet little liebling was cracking his knuckles. Granted, in the short-feeling months of their relationship they'd never had a _fight_ exactly - Klavier refused to call their little spat over that one 3am jam session a "fight" - but he'd seen Apollo anxious many times in court, and knuckle-cracking had never been a part of it. The subtle crunching noise was almost painful to listen to, and _very_ distracting.

"Could you try _not_ breaking your hands when I'm sitting right here?" Klavier asked, wincing at a particularly loud pop.

Apollo jumped a little at the sound of his voice, but thankfully stopped, blushing a little in embarrassment. "Ah...sorry. Old habit."

"You like the sound or something?"

"Nah," Apollo said, shrugging. "I broke a couple of my fingers when I was a kid. They click a little now." He demonstrated, rousing another wince from the blond prosecutor.

"Broke them? That must've hurt."

"You should've seen the other kid's face," Apollo said, his laugh sounding a little too bitter for it to have been a joke, "I got off lucky."

"You broke your fingers _fist fighting_?" Klavier asked, genuinely surprised. "I never would've expected it of you, liebling."

"Stuff happens," Apollo said with a shrug. "I didn't grow up in the best neighborhood."

"You're so straight-laced; I never would've expected it."

"I grew out of it." Another shrug. Klavier shook his head slightly, watching as Apollo turned back to his papers. There was week two's lesson: Apollo didn't volunteer personal information about his past.

"If I'd known you had battle scars, we could've compared some." Klavier grinned, putting his book down.

The look Apollo gave him was so incredulous it was adorable.

"_You_ have 'battle scars'?"

Klavier pulled up the left leg of his pants, showing off a wide mark on his calf that was a little glossier than the rest of his skin. "Tailpipe of my hog."

Apollo considered the scar for a moment, tilting his head to the side. They'd both been appreciating each other's bodies for some time, but usually only in the lights-off sense, so the revelation was completely new.

"I'll see your tailpipe burn with a knife wound, and raise you one fall down a fire-escape," Apollo replied, undoing his tie and unbuttoning enough of his shirt and vest to show off a thin horizontal mark on his shoulder. "The fire-escape bit didn't scar, but I broke my arm."

"_Knife wound_?" Klavier gaped. The scar was small, but the mere thought of someone attacking Apollo with a knife made his blood run cold.

"Yeah. Tried to pickpocket the wrong guy," Apollo rolled his eyes, completely too nonchalant about it in Klavier's opinion. "Well, it was my fault really. I should've known better than to try it while I was drunk."

"And..._how_ old were you?"

"About...uh...fifteen?" Apollo glanced at the ceiling, recollecting. "Yeah, fifteen. It was about...a month after the pawnshop owner tried to shoot me..."

"_Shoot you_?"

"Again, my fault, really. I shouldn't have gone back for the other necklace."

"Schatzi, you were a _thief_?"

"If it makes you feel any better, I was starving. And I was terrible at it," Apollo shrugged again, like he was talking about being bad at sports in school. "I could never really get away with stealing stuff."

"_Why_?"

"Let's just say that some foster homes are better than others," This time there was no shrug, but Apollo touched the bracelet on his wrist in a gesture that Klavier _did_ recognize. "Things got a lot better after I was transferred out of that one."

"Liebling, I'm so sorry," Klavier said, feeling genuinely guilty for having brought the subject up at all. Apollo just shrugged and gave him a roguish grin.

"Why be sorry? My life's great now. Besides, it taught me that being on the right side of the law's much less painful than being on the wrong side," He said, putting his clothes back to rights. "And it means I have a better idea of how criminal minds work, I guess."

The longer the two of them spent together, the more they learned about each other. That night, Klavier learned that his schatzi was much, much stronger than he ever would have imagined, and Apollo learned that Klavier took 'cheering his sweet liebling up' _very_ seriously...


End file.
